A combination of public policy decisions and corporate scheming saw to it that countless convenient and efficient urban streetcar and intra-city rail systems were dismantled
In the early 1900s, vast rail networks connected the continent, and streetcar systems weaved through cities that you wouldn't traditionally consider hubs, like LA.
Birthplace of jazz, home of blackened redfish and streets filled with music, friendly faces, streetcars, garbage... The mayor could see the Garbage Barge way off on the horizon.
Einstein had come to this realisation while travelling in a streetcar in Bern in the early summer of 1905 and looking at the clock-tower in the centre of the city.
People like my father, who fought in World War II, were certainly affected by those experiences, and some people believe in part that's what A Streetcar Named Desire is trying to understand.
If the streetcar had suddenly accelerated to the speed of light it would not mean that the clock-tower had stopped, only that it appeared to have done so relative to the speed which the streetcar was now travelling at.
While East Germans were officially banned from leaving the country, in Berlin, it was simply a matter of walking, or riding a subway, streetcar or bus, to the Western half, then traveling on to West Germany or beyond.